Bad Detective
by Duchess of Inkling
Summary: Severus Snape is a bad detective and he always gets his man. Draco has contracted an unfortunate alliance, and Snape goes to extreme measures attempting to prevent it. In some ways a crossover with PG Wodehouse's works. Written for the trousersnaco challe
1. Chapter 1

(A/N: Come into my garden, lady-loves, and see what has blossomed today. This is one of my entries for the admirable trousersnaco community over at ElJay, a feastie in the months of autumn to celebrate the highly educational relationship between that paragon of the Malfoy line and our favourite Potions Master. I have valiantly taken upon me the task of writing two challenges, of which this is the first one. If the second one comes to fruition at all, I believe it will be too naughty for this website, so keep a eye open for that in other places. In any case, this one is here, and I must credit the books of PG Wodehouse for certain flourishes of style and the Molesworth books by Geoffrey Willans for one, for I used them as inspiration, and took great joy in imitating their beauty. The title is a New York Dolls song, but they don't own the rights to that anyway, and also most of them are dead. Chapters for this story will be short and snappy, leaving you hopefully wanting more –and, surprisingly, getting more. Oh, yes. Thanks very much to Cestan The Mage for beta-ing. Really, he is the most invaluable help and at such short notice, too. We hope you will enjoy this venture, and see you soon. Your Duchess.)

**Chapter One: Kiss Your Sons And Daughters Goodbye, Goodbye**

From the first moment Severus Snape had entered the Hog's Head, he noticed something was wrong. He glanced to where he had seen Lucius Malfoy sitting through the window, and he noticed it again. Lucius' eyes were strangely dim, his hair was unusually listless, and his otherwise straight back and shoulders showed a distinct slump. Every now and again he would shudder with an unnamed dread, and mutter something to himself in a soundless voice. It was plain that here sat a man with whom all was not right, that this was, in fact, a man who was knee-deep, if not chin-deep or even eyebrow-deep, in the soup.

Snape sighed, and stalked over to where Lucius was sitting. As he loomed over Lucius, preparing to slide into the seat opposite, the former started visibly, cast a haunted look over his despondent shoulder, and uttered a faint cry, as he recognized the shadow of trouble for what it was: Severus Snape. "Severus!" he mewled out. "Thank God you came."

"No trouble, no trouble at all." Snape said, taking his seat and casting a pitying look on his anxious friend. What could it be, he wondered, that had turned this proud descendent of the Malfoy family- one who, in the past, had gazed with clear blue eyes into the future and fearlessly bunged helpless Muggles into the afterlife – into the shuddering wreck he witnessed at present? And, sad though it made him, he did not know the answer to this question. He cleared his throat, deciding that now was perhaps the time to ask. "So, what's wrong?" he asked, positioning with difficulty his face into the appropriate expression of sympathetic curiosity. Lucius reacted to the question by promptly knocking his goblet of Firewhiskey over with shock, then hiding his face in his hands, drawing long, wracking breaths. After a few moments, he peered over his trembling fingers with wide, shiny eyes.

"You have to promise not to tell anyone about this." He said in a broken voice. "Promise you won't tell anyone!"

"I promise." Snape said, raising an eyebrow.

"It's Draco…" Lucius whispered. "He… Oh, Severus!" He collapsed into heart-rending sobbing, sinking down onto the Firewhiskey-drenched table, hair trailing unattractively through the alcohol.

"Pull yourself together, Lucius." Snape said. "I can't help you if you don't tell me."

"Yes… yes…" Lucius croaked through his tears. "Sorry. It's just… so hard…" he wiped the tears and whiskey from his face and hair, leaving streaks of dirt across his face. "Draco has attracted an... unfortunate alliance. Although, strictly speaking, unfortunate is a bit of an understatement. Draco has attracted an alliance of such apocalyptic dimensions that even the Dark Lord is hiding in his coal cellar and stocking up on tinned foods in apprehension." Here, Lucius paused, looking pained. "On July the 21st, my only son and heir is to be married to none other than… Hermione Granger." And he burst into tears again.


	2. Chapter 2: Just Like Robin Hood

(A/N: Thanks to my beloved Alpha-Wolf for beta-ing. And thanks to the late Marc Bolan for the title. You know I'm just a jeepster for you, my dears.)

**Chapter Two: Don't You Know You're Just Like Robin Hood**

"But that's impossible." Snape said, incredulous. "Granger has been stuck to that Weasley boy like a leech to a hemophiliac since year one. And besides, I thought Draco was going to marry Parkinson, or at the very least Zabini."

"I know, I know." Lucius said, wiping powerlessly at the tears that were streaming down his face. "Where did I go wrong, Severus? Where? Have I been such a bad father, that he should repay for the many years I've cared for him, comforted him, and taught him the Dark Arts, with this?"

"Ah, er." Snape said, thinking of the ever dubious relationship between the Malfoys senior and junior, and the countless moments during the life of the latter when he had thought a more, er, healthy distance between the two should have been maintained. "I… really cannot say, Lucius."

"It doesn't matter anymore, anyway. The damage is done. My only son, for whom I'd dreamt of a beautiful, golden future is going to marry an over-eager, humourless Mudblood book-fancier."

"There must be something we can do." Snape said thoughtfully. "July 21st, that's still at least two months away.

"Two months, four days and… eighteen hours." Lucius said. "I am crossing out the days in my own blood." He pulled out a few calendar leaves from his robe pocket, on which he had indeed put large, wavering crosses in a thick brownish red through a small number of days.

"Oh dear." Snape said, raising his eyebrows. "That's rather dramatic."

"Considering the circumstances, I think I'm being blasé to the point of callousness." Lucius said. "Don't forget that this is Granger we're talking about. _Granger_." His eyes filled with tears again as he spat the name.

"I am sure I can come up with something." Snape said, soothingly. "How did Granger get her hands on him, anyway?"

"Well, Draco's at a very impressionable age, you know." Lucius said. "Last year, when Crabbe and Goyle announced their engagement, nothing would do for him to get a boyfriend too. I suppose, now that he found out Zabini is going for that Mudblood singer, he thinks it is the thing." Lucius' eyes narrowed. "I knew we should have kept our band together. You would have been just the thing for Draco, and if he could have gotten the singer part right, he would not have bothered about the Mudblood part."

"But Lucius, our band was…well…" Snape said, trying to find words and failing. "You know." Images of festivals in the nineteen sixties assailed his brain.

"Well, there is no point in considering what might have been now." Lucius said, shaking with paternal grief. "It is all beyond repair, and my son is marrying a Granger."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that." Snape said, looking smug. Lucius looked up at him, eyes glistening with an emotion nearly close to hope, laying a trembling hand over Snape's.

"Oh, Severus…" he said, voice breaking, "I know you would pull through." And he collapsed in the safety of Snape's bony embrace.


	3. Chapter 3: Call Up Sherlock Holmes

(A/N: Thanks again to my own Alpha Wolf for beta-ing, and thanks to Sparks for helpfully writing sexual songs about Sherlock Holmes.)

**Chapter Three: You Can Call Up Sherlock Holmes**

Severus Snape was hanging around the Potions classroom, sorting salamander skins. Had anyone been around, which was not the case, they might have noticed the strange bright gleam in his dark eyes. They might also have noticed the way his head stuck out a bit at the back. They might have noticed the way he kept glancing into the Collected Works of Spinoza; they might have noticed his face was particularly alight with intelligence today. If they had squinted, they could have already seen the phantom of a light bulb already present above his black-locked crown. "There," they would have said, "stands a chap about to have a great idea. A whale-sized idea, one might say, or, as the Muggles say; a corker." And they would have been right.

Snape had been, for several days, indulging in some proper brain exercise. His brain being a particularly substantial one, this exercise had been of a size that sits down with you and demands in no uncertain terms the kind of respect it wants, and what is more, you do exactly what it tells you. He had been, in other words, mulling over what Lucius had told him in the Hog's Head, and he was on the brink of solving this conundrum. And… there it was. The lights went on- had Severus Snape been a shop, one might have said he was now ready, and opened for business. "I've got it!" our valiant thinker exclaimed, and nearly smiled.

-------------------------------------------

It was a quiet afternoon at Malfoy Manor. Rain was pouring down steadily outside, and the family itself was gathered in the green drawing room, in front of a low fire. They were rather despondently draped in a half-moon around the fireplace, sipping their drinks in boredom. The exception was the son and heir, who, instead of doing his part to entertain the company, was gazing upon his guest with an unbroken look of such unabashed admiration, that it was making everyone else in the room, even the object of his affection, quite unbearably sick.

"Another pickled newt?" Narcissa offered Hermione for the umpteenth time.

"No, thanks." Hermione said, taking a break from looking at Draco with disgust, to look at the pickled newts with disgust. Narcissa sighed and put the tray back down, staring out of the window blankly. Next to her, Lucius, weakened by despair and blood-loss, was barely managing to stay in his seat. His eyes were hollow and his hair lank, and all in all he was looking like David Bowie in the throes of his cocaine days, but worse. His hand trembled as he fought to bring his glass to his lips. Though it might cost him the rest of his strength, he had to have a drink, or he imagined he would go insane by the end of the next minute. With an intense effort, he swallowed his sip, closing his eyes in pain and then relief as the potent mixture of Fire-whiskey, brandy, and absinthe began to work its dark magic. Narcissa glanced at his glass in some discomfort, probably because its odour, reminiscent of that of petra oleum, was quickly taking over the atmosphere of the room.

Just then, a hollow bronze peal rang echoing through the house: the doorbell, which had heralded the Malfoy guests for centuries with its sombre call. Lucius glanced at Narcissa- they were not expecting any more visitors. "I'll go." He said, his voice faint and his look anxious. The other Malfoys were also looking nervous, though they did their best to hide it. Hermione, however, was looking at them from the corners of her eyes, noting the mood and finding it highly suspicious.

In the meantime, Lucius had apparated to the front door. Apparition over short distance was something he had previously held in distaste, but had taken to a lot more ever since Dobby had been 'freed' by The Boy Who Stole House Elves. With a sigh and a lazy swish of his wand, he unlocked the door and then opened it. On the doorstep was standing a tall, thin wizard- it had to be one, Malfoy Manor was Unplottable to Muggles- whose skin had a distinctly pallid tone. Shiny black hair was slicked back over his skull and he was wearing a huge tweed cloak. His eyes had tick lids, from under which dark and oddly glittering eyes were looking down on Lucius in a way that reminded him of looking in the mirror. Lucius blinked. He was sure he had never seen this man before- though at the same time he seemed strangely familiar. "Good evening." The strange visitor said in a richly resonant voice, "This is Malfoy Manor?"

"Yes, it is." Lucius said, becoming irked. "Though what that is to you I cannot imagine." The man smirked, again in a maddeningly familiar but unrecognisable way.

"Good to see it's working." He said. "Now let me in so I can explain."

"Excuse me?" Lucius said.

"Come on Lucius, it's me." The man said. "Snape."

"It is?" Lucius said, raising his eyebrows. "Prove it."

"Alright." The man said. "My first pet was a spider called Mars. I was inconsolable when my father crushed it when I was in first year. You, as the sole person in the school, saw my grief, and said you would make it disappear if I met you in the Astronomy Tower at midnight. And you did." Lucius frowned.

"Alright, Severus, what is this?" he said, crossing his arms.

"Didn't I tell you I would find a solution to the Granger ordeal?" Snape said, looking smug.

"Yes, but I fail to see what disguising yourself as a completely random man is going to achieve." Lucius said.

"Just trust me." Snape said, and came in.


End file.
